James Clemens - Shadowfall

“I have no other course,” he answered and grabbed his small finger again.

Delia kicked him in the shin. Unfortunately it wasn’t hard enough to shatter bone, but it did get his attention. “Miiodons fear icy water!”

“So we’ve been told,” Rogger said, urgency entering his voice as they were forced away from the hatch by the approach of snaking tentacles.

Tylar paused enough to listen. That was the strange part of this attack. Jelly sharks liked warm equatorial waters, not the cold of the Meerashe Deep. “What are you getting on about?”

Before Delia could answer, the sound of a hatch crashing open drew all their attention across the ship. Upon the foredeck, a lone sailor appeared with a raised sword. His eyes were wild, his gait wobbling. Drunk. It seemed some sought courage in a bottle, but found only stupidity.

He crossed to the rail that overlooked the miiodon. He cursed and shook his sword.

“Get back, man!” Tylar yelled.

The drunken sailor took his warning as encouragement and sliced at a tentacle that wandered too near. He cleaved clean through it, but he was rewarded with a spray of blood and venom to his face.

A scream tore from him as his flesh boiled and smoked. He fell to his knees, blinded. He clawed at his face in agony.

Delia cried out and turned away.

She needn’t have hidden her face. The miiodon surged toward the man, sensing the blood. Appendages crested over the foredeck rail and fell upon the sailor, covering him completely. In a heartbeat, poison silenced his cries.

“At least his death bought us some deck space,” Rogger said, ever practical.

With the jelly shark distracted by its meal, only a single tentacle still probed their deck.

Tylar drew them all to the rear rail.

“Maybe now’s the time to let loose that shadowy beast of yours,” Rogger persisted.

“No,” Delia said, rising from her shock. A hand darted into her robe, searching a pocket. “There’s another way.” But her voice had dropped in timbre, her confidence in whatever drew her up here clearly waning.

Tylar touched her shoulder and spoke softly. “What is it?”

Delia’s eyes were watery with fright, but she finally freed a crystal jar from a pocket. She held it out to Tylar.

It was an empty repostilary, like the one that had borne Meeryn’s blood. But it was not blood Delia wanted.

“We need your water.”

Tylar gaped at her. “What?”

“You want the man’s piss?” Rogger echoed his confusion.

Delia shoved the glass bottle toward Tylar. “Trust me! Please!”

Confused, he accepted the repostilary and glanced to Rogger.

The thief merely shrugged. “My mama taught me never to refuse a lady.”

Shaking his head and biting back a curse, Tylar swung away. He loosened the strings to his trousers and freed himself. He held the glass jar. Never in all his trials as a Shadowknight had he even been in such a dire predicament. If the jelly shark didn’t kill him, humiliation would.

He stared down at himself, at the priceless crystal repostilary. He hated to foul such a vessel with his own water, but like a good and noble knight, he kept his aim true. The repostilary was soon filled.

Before he could even tuck himself back into his trousers, Delia was there. She grabbed the crystal vessel and lifted it to the light. Her lips parted in relief. Lowering her arm, she held the repostilary out toward him again. “Blood.”

“What?”

“Just a drop… quickly.”

Tylar was beyond asking. The miiodon’s tentacles were showing a renewed interest in their party. He simply did as she told him and nicked the tip of his left thumb on his sword. He held forth the bleeding wound.

Delia kept a warding hand over the repostilary. Her eyes met his. “Think of ice. Water so cold it freezes with its mere touch.”

He nodded as she uncovered the jar.

“Concentrate hard!” she ordered.

He did, picturing in his mind’s eye a font of frigid water. He knew cold. He had once traveled to Ice Eyrie in winter, to hunt down a nasty band of bloodrunners. He had spent eight days on the frozen tundra. He remembered the frost that rimed his cloak, the ache of wind across his bare skin. Then he had stepped wrong, broken through a crust of ice, and fallen headlong into a blue tarn. He allowed the memory of that icy dunking to wash through him.

A drop of blood fell into the repostilary.

Delia replaced the stopper, shook the vessel, then held it out. “Throw it.” She pointed to the middeck. “Toward the bulk of the creature.”

Tylar took the glass vessel. He was shocked to find the crystal had gone ice cold in his hand.

“Throw it!”

He arched, bringing his arm back, then flung the repostilary through the air. It sailed in a perfect arc and shattered against the broken mast stub, spraying the contents over the undulating flank of the jelly shark.

The miiodon reared up. Convulsing waves coursed outward across its skin from the site of the splash, darkening along the way. Tentacles contracted back toward their well-spring, curling in on themselves, leaving behind trails of sizzling poison like so much snail slime. The tang of venom choked the air.

“Seems the beastie don’t much like your piss,” Rogger said. “Not that I can blame it, having shared a cell with you.”

“It isn’t Tylar’s water the beast shuns,” Delia said, awe tracing her words. “It’s the Grace held within.”

The jelly shark writhed upon the middeck, rocking the ship with its mass. The dark stain upon its flesh continued to spread, as if the beast were being cooked from the inside.

“What’s happening?” Rogger asked.

Delia watched, her eyes studious. “A miiodon’s digestive venom is kept from consuming its own flesh by the beast’s body heat. That’s why the Chilldaldrii ice harpoons can fend off the creatures. A wound from an ice spear activates the jelly shark’s own poison around the point of contact, causing the venom to eat the beast’s flesh. The pain drives the creature back into the sea where it eventually heals.”

Tylar watched the darkened sections of the miiodon begin to melt and slough. If Delia was right, the miiodon wasn’t cooking from the inside out. It was eating itself from the inside out.

Finally, the jelly shark’s thickest tentacle, ending in a footpad, lashed out to the starboard rail. It grabbed hold and heaved its bulk over the side, seeking to escape the agony. The miiodon crashed gracelessly into the sea and sank away.

“Will it survive?” Rogger asked, leaning over the rail and watching the bubbling fade to empty seas.

“Doubtful,” Delia answered. “That was no mere harpoon that struck the beast, but the full Grace of a god’s blessing.”

Tylar remembered Delia saying something similar a moment before. “What are you talking about?”

She faced him. “You cast a blessing upon the beast, a charm of icy waters.”

“A charm from his piss?” Rogger interrupted.

She nodded. “And blood.”

Tylar remained very still. He was no Hand, trained in the art of Graces, but having been a Shadowknight he was not ignorant of how a god’s bodily humours functioned. Only the flows from a god could bless or charm.

“What are you saying?” he whispered hotly. “That my fluids have the same potency as a god’s?”

“Not any god’s,” Delia answered. “Meeryn’s.”

“Impossible,” Rogger muttered.

Delia kept her focus on Tylar. “I saw it the day you were whipped in the yard. I recognized the glow of Graces in your blood. When Meeryn died, she not only gifted you with the dred ghawl. She somehow granted you her power as a god. It flows through all your humours, not just your blood.”